His counsel again moved for a continuance, and, doubtless, pleaded the insanity phase of the question in support of the motion. Upon the conclusion of Mr. Botts's remarks, Brown raised up on his couch and said: I will add, if the court will allow me, that I look upon it as a miserable artifice and pretext of those who ought to take a different course in regard to me, if they took any at all, and I view it with contempt more than otherwise. Insane persons, so far as my experience goes, have but little ability to judge of their own sanity; and if I am insane, of course I should think I knew more than all the rest of the world. But I do not think so. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity, and I reject, so far as I am capable, any attempts to interfere in my behalf on that score.[458] Mr. Griswold, however, after coming into the case, revived the question of Brown's sanity, and on November 7th, enclosed to the Governor a petition and an affidavit affirming the claim that Brown was insane.[459] Replying to this letter, Mr. Villard states that the Governor replied that "a plea of insanity could be filed at any time before conviction or sentence, and wrote an admirable letter to Dr. Stribbling, superintendent of the lunatic asylum at Staunton, Virginia, ordering him to proceed to Charlestown and examine the prisoner, saying: 'If the prisoner is insane he ought to be cured; and if not insane the fact ought to be vouched for in the most reliable form, now that it is questioned under oath and by counsel since conviction.' Unfortunately, the impetuous Governor countermanded these instructions and the letter was never sent." Later, acting upon the advice of Mr. Montgomery Blair, the defence secured nineteen affidavits made by friends living at Akron, Cleveland, and Hudson, Ohio, in support of the plea. These affidavits were delivered to Governor Wise by Mr. Hoyt, on the 23d day of November. Mr. Villard states that "these people in their efforts to save Brown laid bare some sad family secrets." However, upon this very important phase of Brown's condition Governor Wise had an opinion of his own. To the Virginia Legislature he said: "I know that he was sane, if quick and clear perception, if assumed rational premises and consecutive reasoning from them, if cautious tact in avoiding disclosures and in covering conclusions and inferences, if memory and conception and practical common sense, and if composure and self-possession are evidence of a sound state of mind. He was more sane than his prompters and promoters, and concealed well the secret which made him seem to do an act of mad impulse, by leaving him, without his backers, at Harper's Ferry."[460] Brown's line of defense is set forth in a memorandum of suggestions which he personally prepared for the guidance of his counsel.[461] It reads as follows: JOHN BROWN'S DIRECTIONS TO HIS COUNSEL